TV

Gerald McRaney returns to ‘House of Cards’

Gerald McRaney has juggled recurring and guest roles on nearly a dozen shows since 2006, including “Mike & Molly,” “Southland,” Justified,” “Longmire,” and “Deadwood.”

Even he’s surprised by that heavy workload.

“I can’t hold down a job!” jokes the actor during a phone interview from his home in LA last week. On Friday, McRaney reprised his role as wealthy, conniving businessman Raymond Tusk on the second season of the Netflix political drama “House of Cards,” starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright.

It turns out the Mississippi native prefers variety to the constraints of doing a single character for multiple seasons, a work ethic shaped by his early jobs in repertory theater in New Orleans.

“Playing different roles all the time — that was the whole idea. One night you’re the king, the next night you’re carrying a spear for him,” explains McRaney, 66. “That’s what acting was all about when I started out, and these last few years have been just terrific for me.”

McRaney says that, on “House of Cards,” he feels challenged for many other reasons — including last season, when he was faced with his character’s fluency in Chinese.

“The toughest part of season one was having to learn Mandarin. I knew what it was that I was saying — I wasn’t just making sounds,” says McRaney, who was tutored by teachers in Baltimore and LA. Not that he’s fluent now, by any stretch of the imagination. “Are you kidding me? I flunked Spanish in high school,” he says, adding that he at least knows “a few words, but it’s like somebody ordering from a Mexican restaurant in Spanish. That’s about the limit of my Chinese.”

McRaney, who appeared in only two “Cards” episodes last season, says his expanded role in the show’s sophomore year gives him a chance to delve further into Tusk, who he describes as “somebody who you don’t know which color hat he’s wearing.” That duality drives McRaney’s interest.

Plus, he appreciates that his usual scene partner is Spacey. “When you work with actors that are that good, they make you better,” he says.

“There is a sort of friendly competition when you’re working with somebody that has to be there for it to be rich,” he says. “It’s like any athletic competition or anything else — you play to the level of the competition.”

In his four-decade acting career, McRaney has logged parts on dozens of TV shows and movies. He made his Broadway debut in the 2008 play “Dividing the Estate,” which was nominated for a Tony Award. He was also in the 2010 film “The A-Team,” based on the 1983-87 series, and recently completed a part in the upcoming romantic comedy “Focus,” starring Will Smith.

But McRaney — who in May will celebrate his 25th wedding anniversary with his wife, actress (and “Designing Women” star) Delta Burke — is most often remembered for his breakthrough roles as half of a pair of private-investigator brothers in the ’80s series “Simon & Simon” (co-starring Jameson Parker) and as a Marine in the 1989-93 sitcom “Major Dad.”

The long-term memories of fans and the media don’t surprise him. “If you do anything that is successful — on television, especially — that’s sort of what you get branded with. Good, bad or indifferent, that’s just it,” he says. Of course, sometimes he’d prefer to focus on his more recent roles. “You know, you’ve done some of your best work and they still think of you as ‘Major Dad.’ I can’t tell you how many articles I’ve read of how ‘Major Dad’ is now doing this, ‘Major Dad’ is now doing that,” he says, adding with a laugh, “Guys, I did that, okay? Let’s move on!”

McRaney himself has moved on, tackling characters that, for him, are the most difficult artistically. “The hardest are always the ones that are heavily emotional,” he says.

Playing an alcoholic, retired cop on TNT’s “Southland” last year was an especially wrenching role. He cites a particularly powerful scene in which his character breaks down, sobbing, during an intervention by another cop, played by series star Michael Cudlitz.

“When I came to tears in that scene, it surprised me because I hadn’t intended to do that. It just happened,” he says. “Normally those scenes are like pulling teeth for me to get to those emotional places.”

As for his portrayal of Tusk on “House of Cards,” McRaney says he also taps his own ethos to further mold the character.

“I’m as capable of being a jerk or a humanitarian as anybody else is,” he says. “It’s just a matter of isolating that part of yourself and going from there.”

Not that he can relate to all aspects of the self-serving Tusk. “I’ve always dreamed about being a billionaire. I don’t think it’s likely to ever happen,” he says, laughing.

“But, you know, I can play with it.”